A GOTHIC COLLECTION
Florence & Giles
The Girl Who Couldn’t Read
John Harding
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
Copyright © John Harding 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2015
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2015
John Harding asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of these works.
Catalogue copies of these books are available from the British Library.
These novels are entirely works of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in them are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © October 2015 ISBN: 9780008162955
Version: 2015-09-07
Contents
Copyright
About the Author
Also by John Harding
About the Publisher
JOHN HARDING
Florence & Giles
The Borough Press
An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London, SE1 9GF
First published by Blue Door in 2010
Copyright © John Harding 2010
Cover layout design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2010
Cover photographs © Scott Dingman/Getty Images (girl looking through broken window); Shutterstock (stairwell).
John Harding asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Ebook Edition © February 2010 ISBN: 9780007315062
Version: 2015-09-07
For Norah
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
The Swan
Part One